


before battle partaking

by greenkangaroo



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dorian decided paperwork wouldn't cut it, Gen, Post-Trespasser, Revolution, he's still a little bitter about that, postgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 04:57:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20148019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenkangaroo/pseuds/greenkangaroo
Summary: The morning of a fight Magister Pavus had been hoping to avoid but knew was inevitable, he receives a gift.





	before battle partaking

**Author's Note:**

> Adoribull is mentioned in passing; I didn't want to add it to the tags because it is literally one line but y'all should know up front that it's here.

It was the morning of revolution and there was a bit of dead animal on Dorian Pavus’s bed.

Well. It was a bed in that it was where he’d been resting his head for the past six months, but aside from utility it didn’t fit anywhere in the realm of ‘beds’ as the Magister of House Pavus had known them since birth. Pity the straw wasn’t imported from the South. 

He had no doubt he’d have slept on it better.

The bit of dead animal in question brought him up short when he returned from his morning wash. It sat on his pillow, a too-natural form for the lumpy batting. 

He probably should raise the alarm, but a few things stopped him.

First of all, they were mere hours away from a vicious, bloody, and hopefully decisive battle that Dorian had tried gamely to avoid for five years before finally giving up and turning bleeding heart rebel, declaring to those who didn’t know him at all that violent revolution beat paperwork any day. 

Those who did know him had sent a variety of colorful coded messages, anything from highlighted paragraphs in the newest tawdry novel to invisible ink painted onto raven wings, all of which amounted to _“About fucking time, you’re crazy, what can we do to help?”_

Secondly, if the person who had delivered the dead animal bit wanted Dorian in a similar position of not-life, they clearly had a chance (while he was stark naked one room over no less) and didn’t take it. 

Third.

Third…

Dorian approached the pile of blankets and straw not with caution but something more like reverence. He stood over the rumpled mess for a moment and eyed the gift. 

His second in command wouldn’t call it that, perhaps. She’d call it something else. A threat, maybe? A calling card?

Well perhaps it was a calling card. 

His primary staff still lay against the wall at the foot of the bed. He retrieved it, running his fingers over the wood. It was a special favorite, this particular staff. Not just for the dawnstone cabochons (entirely useless for magical focusing, each one carved like a pair of horns) but because he had sworn when he began its crafting that by the time he was done he would use it to set things right.

As if all were so ordered.

As if the violence to come would truly solve all the ills of a nation that was as blighted as the world it had helped to blight. 

If they won, there would be chaos. If they lost, there would be chaos. Par Vollen still waited, and those who wanted vengeance would not be swayed by the laying down of arms or the signing of treaties. Empires took generations to build and it would follow that the damned things took generations to fall or warp or change. Unfortunate, as Dorian was not the most patient of men. 

Today would either be the beginning of healing or a mercy blow.

Dorian Pavus, last of his House, hadn’t yet decided which one would be more fitting. 

Still there was the gift on his pillow, artfully arranged. He plucked it up in long fingers that had been distilled through years of hateful marriages and culled failures to be perfect for spellcasting. 

He looped the rough leather cord around the end of his staff a few times. He straightened up and tapped the staff on the stone floor. The gift clacked against the wood and the Fade crackled for a moment. He ran his fingertips down the blackened bone. 

“I’m not doing this for you,” he said to the room, as though the one who had left the gift were still around to hear it.

Who knew. Perhaps he was. 

Dorian heaved a deep sigh. “Still.” He laid the staff to rest against a splintered dresser that should be honored to hold what was left of his decent clothes.

Another pause.

"I suppose I take the vote of confidence. Even though it is, quite frankly, _years_ late and abysmally tacky." 

If Dorian survived- the operating word there being if- he would write south to the Divine Victoria and the Inquisition. He might send his gift along, write some lofty missive asking if they could track through bone as mages were tracked through phylacteries. It would be a solid lead, the first in years. 

His lover would be furious with him for even carrying it around. He could hear him now, _demon-y shit, traitor, could have been killed, Kadan what the fuck were you thinking._

The Iron Bull was probably still riding pellmell for Minrathous now, desperate to shave hours, minutes, seconds off of his arrival time. As though one man could make a difference. 

Then again, Dorian Pavus had once seen one man make quite a difference, indeed. 

Dorian finished dressing. He left off the powders, the mica, the khol. 

That was worthless armor to him now. 

There was a knock on the door. He could tell it was Halyn by the way the knuckles rapped. Halyn had once taken an arrow for him in a fight and he'd raged at her for twenty minutes as she was seen to before she'd weakly kicked him in the gut and told him to stop being such an Altus. He hadn't been called an Altus in so long that he'd laughed. “Ser? We’re waiting.” 

A smile, tiny and hopeless, graced Dorian's lips. It could almost be rakish. Perhaps he'd make it so before they marched. “Ready,” he called back. 

He picked up his staff and watched the Dread Wolf’s jaw swing. Then he steeled his shoulders and reached for the doorhandle. 

He had a slave rebellion to support and a life to lose, or live, or give. He began to turn the handle. 

“Good luck, Dorian,” someone said behind him, soft as if they'd been standing in the library together with the scent of paint and books weighing down whatever argument they'd been thinking to start. 

Dorian didn’t turn. He knew he wouldn’t see anything. 

“Thank you, Solas,” he murmured, and stepped out into oblivion.

**Author's Note:**

> Like Solas could keep his jerky little nose out of a slave rebellion in ANY country in the world.


End file.
